Curses!
by nek0123
Summary: A new invention from the 12th squad captain that specializes in curses is running rampant and causes the Bleach crew to seek help from the YYH gang. But are they going to be able to stop it when their cursed?
1. Chapter 1

**Curses!**

Chapter 1

D.A.C.T.I.D.

Demonic Antagonizing and Curse-specializing Tactical Infiltration Device. Created by the Seireitei research and development team, which consisted of Mayuri and his assistant, Nemu. Mayuri had been very proud of it, at the time. It was designed to cause havoc amongst any army sent against the Soul Society, and – like most of his experiments – it had come out perfectly. However, since not much was going on at the time it had been completed, it quickly ended up mothballed in some back room storage facility off from his lab, forgotten as the next invention took up the mad Soul Reaper's attention.

There the DACTID had remained, in a sealed, unmarked box for a year, gathering dust. Life went on around the Seireitei without it, battles were fought and won, fours seasons came and went, until it finally saw the light of day again.

Yachiru, pink-haired menace and lieutenant to probably the least sane captain in the history of the Soul Society, found the box. Inside it was what looked suspiciously like a tic-tac. She stared at it for a moment, thinking deeply. It would probably cause untold destruction and lots of battles if she were to – for example – put it in Mayuri's coffee. He would probably be quite annoyed if it grew to epic proportions and ate him, or perhaps turned him into a puppy. Then again, Kenny had been bored lately, and he _liked_ untold destruction and lots of battles.

"Come on, tic-tac." She decided, pocketing the small pill. It _had_ been boring lately, after all. Sneaking out of the store room and back into the main lab, she sidled up to Mayuri's unattended coffee cup and took the little pill out of her pocket, squinting at it. It didn't look very interesting, and as she dropped it into the hot liquid she hoped it would do something fun.

She also hoped it was waterproof.

The first thing Mayuri did when he got back from injecting one of his lab rabbits with sodium pentathol to get it to _tell the truth_ for once, was to take a large swig of his cooling coffee. It had been a long day, and that rabbit was proving to be a stubborn opponent.

The second thing Mayuri did was to stand very still for about three minutes as his skin changed from creepy white to an equally creepy shade of light blue.

The third thing Mayuri did when he got back from injecting his rabbit with sodium pentathol was to blow up his lab and a large portion of the surrounding street.

"What the hell?" Ichigo demanded as an explosion rocked the Seireitei and alarms began to wail. Renji, Rukia and Uryuu looked at him blankly for a second before they all set down their sake cups and scrambled out of the bar. Once outside they could see a column of smoke and fire rising from the direction of Mayuri's lab, which gave them some idea as to what might have happened. Mayuri blowing himself up was a fairly common occurrence, although he rarely did it this thoroughly.

The four of them set off running towards the cause of the destruction, weaving around the maze-like alleyways of the Soul Society. When they reached their destination, the lab was in ruins and spread across most of the wide road it had stood beside. Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya and his lieutenant Matsumoto were standing nearby looking around for any sign of Mayuri or anyone else who might have been caught in the blast. People injured by debris were being carted away by squad four and since Toshiro seemed to be in charge of the situation, Ichigo and his friends bounded up to him. He gave them his usual flat glare, while Matsumoto started ranting about how the sudden explosion had interrupted her drinking time. She seemed to still be drunk.

"Anything to hurt?" Kenpachi rumbled, looming towards them.

"Nope, just another lab explosion." Renji replied, getting bored and hopping up onto one of the larger chunks of smouldering lab wall to finish the bottle of sake he kept in his uniform.

"Boring." Captain Zaraki rumbled again, turning around and wandering off back towards his captain's office. Yachiru was with him, asleep draped over his shoulder like a ragdoll and gurgling slightly.

"We don't _know_ it was only a lab explosion." Toshiro pointed out, scowling at the lack of professionalism from... well, everyone else in the Soul Society.

"The lab exploded, that's a pretty big indicator." Ichigo muttered, scratching the back of his neck and discreetly watching Uryuu poke at some of the wreckage, trying to look like he was doing something useful.

"I _meant_ what caused it, fool." Toshiro glared, not noticing the fact that Nemu had walked out of the flames directly behind him. He turned when Ichigo stared past him in shock at Mayuri's assistant, who was slightly on fire.

"Mayuri caused the explosion." She said, patting her arm casually to put out the flames.

"Big shock there." Rukia commented, wondering what Nemu was actually made of.

"He has become evil." Nemu spoke again, addressing Ichigo and Toshiro, who she assumed were in charge.

"He was already evil," Ichigo frowned, not quite getting it. Toshiro glared at him a little more, for good measure.

"He has become more evil." Nemu corrected with endless patience. "He has also become blue."

Ichigo opened his mouth to say something about Smurfs when a mad cackling noise began to bubble out from the heart of the flames still engulfing the lab. It rose in volume until even Renji was paying attention, watching the now blue-tinged Mayuri rise up out of the fire. He had a more manic look in his eyes than usual, which was saying something.

"What is the meaning of this, Mayuri?" Toshiro demanded, Matsumoto drawing her sword next to him, albeit in a slightly wobbly way.

"It is not Mayuri. It has taken over his body. It is an infiltration device." Nemu supplied helpfully.

"What does it do?" Rukia asked, also drawing her sword along with everyone else present.

"It curses people. It was designed to cause chaos. None of the curses are fatal, however, I suggest you try to avoid them if possible." She stated.

"Jeez, thanks." Ichigo muttered, then yelped as the cackling started again and a stream of blue light shot out at him. He side-stepped it and raised his Zanpakutou, ready to strike when Mayuri began to glow a sickly green colour that clashed horribly with his now blue skin.

"I suggest you all run." Nemu said, quite calmly, as the glow grew.

"No way, I'm not running away from-" Ichigo began, cut off by hundreds of streams of light shooting out from Mayuri, each one cutting through buildings and crashing into the ground. A cloud of dust and ash was thrown up, obscuring their view of the deranged scientist for a moment. When it cleared, Mayuri was gone.

"Did he just explode?" Ichigo asked, looking at Nemu.

"No. He escaped." She told him, before staring behind him at where Uryuu was looking down at himself, gaping in shock. "Your friends appear to have been cursed."

"Whuh?" Ichigo said intelligently, turning around. He was about to ask what was up before his brain caught up with his eyes and he froze. "Uh..." He mumbled, not quite sure what else to say in that situation.

Uryuu was still gawping down at his now very female figure, eyes wide and a look of hilarious shock on his face. Ichigo would have died laughing at that alone, had he not spared a glance around at the rest of his friends. Renji's clothes had disintegrated and he was standing around naked, looking slightly confused but not too bothered about it. Toshiro, however, was about to kill someone. Both Rukia and Matsumoto were pawing at him, Rukia cuddling him like a teddy bear and Matsumoto attempting to suffocate him in the usual way. They both had strange, starry looks in their eyes when they stared at him, and he was struggling in vain to escape. Nemu was also staring at him, although she was just blushing and standing in place.

"Oookay..." Ichigo decided. "This could be a problem."


	2. Chapter 2

**Curses!**

Chapter 2

"The question I would most like answered at present," Byakuya Kuchiki said in a stern voice, "is why my lieutenant is currently naked." He frowned at Ichigo as though it were his fault, adding "Very naked, in fact."

While Ichigo attempted to explain without really knowing what was going on himself, Renji strode around Byakuya's office being, as Byakuya had stated, very naked. He eventually found his way to the cupboard where his spare uniform hung and decided to put it on since there were ladies present. Said ladies were currently throwing themselves at Toshiro, who was hiding behind Renji's desk, waving his sword at them threateningly. He wondered if he could actually get away with killing them, especially Rukia, who had decided to nickname him 'fluffy'.

"-And we think it escaped to the human world." Ichigo finished explaining, glancing over at Uryuu, who was sitting in the corner of the room sewing himself a dress. It was slightly disturbing how well he was coping after his initial hysterics. Then again, he'd always been slightly girly anyway...

"Well, I take it you're going to go after it. I cannot have my lieutenant walking around naked whenever this thing deems it necessary to eat through his clothes." Byakuya pointed out, slightly disappointed that Renji's clothes seemed to be staying on for the time being. He hadn't realised the tattoos went _that_ far down.

"Nah, we were just gonna let it run rampant in the human world." Ichigo rolled his eyes. Ignoring him, Byakuya stared around at the wreckage of his formerly painfully neat office and sighed in a put-upon way.

"I will be coming with you." He decided.

"So will I," Toshiro put in with a growl, throwing a chair at Matsumoto. "Back, you harpies!"

"Then we'd better leave the women here. Well, except Uryuu." Ichigo grinned.

"Har har. My women's intuition tells me you're an idiot." Uryuu answered, having become _even more_ bitchy since his transformation. It had been hard to achieve, but somehow he'd managed it.

"Can we please _leave_ now?" Toshiro almost whined, his voice taking on a slightly desperate note as the women edged closer.

"I think we should pay Urahara a visit. He'll probably know how we can track it." Ichigo suggested, and it seemed as good a plan as any. Byakuya nodded and swept past, grabbing Renji on the way out.

"Don't think I'm leaving you here to parade around naked." He growled. Renji grinned.

"This is going to be a very long mission..." Toshiro muttered, scampering out of the office and slamming the door behind him, locking the women inside.

"Weren't you a guy the last time you were here?" Urahara greeted Uryuu, who happened to be at the front of their little group. Uryuu simply bitch-slapped him casually and walked on inside, now wearing a dress version of the Quincy uniform. Ichigo thought it looked quite nice, and grinned at Urahara as he too walked on inside.

"Get me inside before the women find me!" Toshiro growled, also rushing past and into the depths of the shop. The final two were Renji, who walked on in with a big grin on his face, as naked as the day he was born, and Byakuya, carrying a number of spare uniforms. He had a slightly glazed over look in his eyes, with made Urahara smirk.

Sauntering in after the rabble who'd invaded his shop, Urahara dismissed his two assistants, who he decided were much too young to see Renji in the altogether. Taking a seat demurely at the low table, he took a long sip of the tea he'd been drinking before the doorbell had chimed. Finally he looked up through his curtain of hair, raising an eyebrow at Ichigo in question.

"Long story short, everyone is cursed, Mayuri did it. We need to find him. He's possessed by a tic tac." The ginger soul-reaper explained.

"Nice!" Urahara exclaimed, seeming quite happy with the turn of events.

"It's not nice! Women are chasing me! Do you know how many times today I've almost been suffocated by _breasts_?!" Toshiro screeched, at his wit's end. Urahara didn't really understand why that was a bad thing, but he let it go.

"I'd also like to get back to normal. I don't have the hips to wear dresses." Uryuu claimed, although Ichigo, eyeing him up, begged to differ.

"I don't care either way." Renji put in, pouting like a four year old as Byakuya forced him into another spare uniform.

"I do." Byakuya glared.

"Well, let me consult my files and see what I can do." Urahara grinned, hopping up and fiddling with a cabinet in the corner, which seemed to be full of bits of torn paper, keyrings and stuffed animals. "Let's see, let's see..." He murmured to himself, rooting about in the piles of junk inside the cabinet. Eventually he came up for air with a stuffed teddy bear, which he tossed to Toshiro. A moment later he came to sit back down at the table, a piece of flowery note paper in his hand.

"All right, I don't have anything here which can track it, but I know where you can get help with that. Also, if it works on the same principle as a mod soul, you can trap it in that teddy bear. It should block its powers."

"_Should?"_ Byakuya frowned, getting a shrug in reply from Urahara.

"No returns." He grinned, then spread the flowery paper on the table in front of them. "You've heard of King Enma, of course." He stated. "His son, Koenma, has a team of detectives working here in the human world. If you visit him, I'm sure he'll have something you can use. His team use demon tracking devices all the time. Also, he owes me."

"Owes you? For what?" Renji asked, having found another bottle of sake from under the table somewhere.

"It involved marmalade, and that's as much as I'm telling you. There are certain things it's better not to talk about in polite company." He said with an evil grin.

"Polite company?" Renji muttered, looking around at the current group. Ichigo was looking bored because he hadn't been able to fight anything for at least ten minutes. Uryuu was sitting in a chair with one leg crossed, filing her nails. Byakuya was frowning at the wall and thinking deep thoughts, which were probably also quite filthy because his eye kept twitching. Toshiro was cowering in the corner, looking annoyed and clutching his zanpakuto and the teddy bear to his chest like a lifeline.

"As polite as I usually get," Urahara shrugged.

"Right, we're off. Where is this Koenma?" Ichigo demanded, getting to his feet.

"You'll find him in the spirit world, it's the first place you end up when you enter." Urahara supplied helpfully, handing the flowery paper to Ichigo. "This is a map to the nearest portal. Good luck!" He grinned, giving a little wave and then quickly shooing them out of the door. He didn't need his neighbours getting any more concerned, they already thought something very strange was going on in the shop. Probably because it was.

An hour and a half later, after wandering around the town and trying to follow Urahara's map – which he'd drawn in crayon – they arrived at a multi-storey car park. That seemed to be what Urahara had meant by the big pink H he'd drawn on the map, so they went inside and down to the basement level where there were very few cars parked. Uryuu, being quite good with sensing disturbances in the force, led them right to a black hole in one wall, which he proceeded to push Ichigo through. To prove it wasn't a portal to doom, he jumped in after and the rest followed reluctantly. Toshiro just hoped there weren't any women on the other end.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Curses!**

Chapter 3

"Uh..." Was all Toshiro could think of to say as he appeared on the other side of the portal and found himself standing almost nose to nose with someone exactly the same height as him, with almost the same hairstyle and a decidedly grumpy look on his face. The dark-haired, red-eyed demon glared at him, not seeming very surprised that several unusual looking people had just materialised right in front of him.

"Hiei, what are you doing?" A slightly feminine voice called, cutting off when the newcomer saw that Hiei had company. Toshiro cringed, preparing for another attack of Women, but although the new arrival looked and sounded female, he turned out not to be.

"Hn." Was all Hiei said, turning away from glaring at them to stalk into a corner and sulk. The red-haired young man hurried up to them, smiling warmly, and welcomed them to the spirit world.

"Hello, hello! I think Koenma is expecting you, he received a call earlier from Mr Urahara. Please, come inside and I'll show you where he is. My name is Kurama, by the way." The redhead informed them, leading them from the finely manicured lawn where they'd appeared into the large pagoda-style building in front of them.

"Uh, hi." Was Ichigo's reply, watching ogres rushing around filing things. Hiei was following them, keeping a close eye in case they tried anything. He didn't trust strangers. Or anyone else.

"Koenma, your guests are here." Kurama announced, leading them into a large chamber. They were surprised to see a toddler sitting behind a desk, frowning down at his paperwork and chewing on his pacifier. Next to him stood a tall youth with a curly quiff of orange hair and a shorter, black-haired young man who was leaning against the wall, looking bored.

"Excellent, thanks Kurama. Yusuke, these are the people I want you to help." The toddler said, looking over at the boy in the green school uniform, who slicked his hair back with one hand and stared at them.

"This had better be important, I'm missing the game for this." He muttered, receiving a knock upside the head from his taller friend.

"Urameshi, this could be a matter of life and death!"

"Is it ever NOT a matter of life and death?" Yusuke glared back, rubbing the back of his head.

"Kuwabara is right, lives could be at stake here." Kurama put in.

"Actually, killing people isn't really in its repertoire." Uryuu informed them. "It just attacks people with extremely stupid curses. I used to be male." He frowned. Yusuke, Ichigo and Renji burst out laughing.

"Well, I still want you to help them. Urahara has some extremely sensitive information – and pictures – that I would prefer didn't become public. They involve marmalade, and that's all I'm saying on the matter." Koenma claimed, hopping up onto his desk. "Excuse me," he said, pointing at Renji, "your clothes seem to be melting."

Renji looked down at himself and watched as the cloth-eating curse chose that moment to eat through his fourth spare uniform. He shrugged, not helping the situation.

"Can't be helped." He said, not really minding.

"Excuse us." Byakuya growled, grabbing the half-naked Renji by the arm and dragging him into one of the side offices to force him into yet another spare uniform.

"Another curse?" Kurama asked, looking concerned.

"Nah, his clothes just fall off all the time." Ichigo grinned.

"Er, right. Well, shall we discuss exactly what it is we're going to do?" Kurama suggested, pulling out a strange device from one of his pockets. He opened it up and looked at it, frowning. "This is the demon tracking device. Strange, it seems to be right-" He was cut off with a crash as Renji and Byakuya came flying backwards through the door, landing on their feet and skidding backwards across the room.

"Mayuri's here!" Renji informed them, as said blue menace floated in through the wreckage of the door, hovering a foot from the ground and grinning happily. It stopped in front of the whole, shocked group, and gave them a cheery little wave.

"_This_ is your bad guy?" Yusuke asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Actually that's our captain of research and development. He's been possessed by something he created." Toshiro supplied helpfully.

"Kinda dim, is he?" Yusuke smirked.

"Occasionally."

Mayuri, even possessed, didn't seem to like that. He frowned, then began to glow the way he had in the wreckage of the lab. The Soul Reapers, knowing what that meant, instantly dived for cover.

"Is that bad?" Kuwabara asked, about half a second before a huge array of coloured light beams shot out from the glow surrounding Mayuri and the lights in the huge office exploded, leaving them in darkness.

"Where is it?" Came a snarl from the darkness that sounded like Hiei, as the backup lights flickered on and they found themselves Mayuri-less. The office was in ruins, chunks of plaster and papers littering the floor.

"Is it gone?" Koenma asked, crawling out from underneath his desk.

"It seems to have escaped into the Makai," Kurama frowned, studying his demon detector as the rest of them picked themselves up out of the debris.

"Anyone get hit?" Ichigo asked, helping dig Kuwabara out from underneath several slabs of the ceiling.

"Ow." The redhead muttered, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

"I feel...odd." Hiei muttered, blinking in slight confusion. Kurama put the demon detector back in his pocket and went over to his friend, not seeing any obvious signs of injury.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" The fox asked, kneeling down next to his friend as the others helped dig Yusuke and Toshiro out of the ruins.

"No." Hiei frowned. "One of those light beams hit me, but it doesn't seem to have had any effect."

"Well, that's a relief." Kurama smiled, turning back to help the rest.

"Woo-hoo!" Yusuke crowed happily, sitting up from underneath a pile of papers and looking slightly frazzled. "Now _that_ was awesome."

The others stared at him in confusion, noticing that he was wobbling drunkenly as he stood up, still grinning happily to himself.

"Are you _drunk_, detective?" Hiei demanded, folding his arms and frowning.

"No, are you short?" Yusuke answered with a giggle.

"Yes." Hiei answered, then looked shocked and clapped both hands over his mouth as his team mates stared at him in surprise.

"Okay, that was weird." Kuwabara pointed out, brushing dust from his school uniform.

"Hiei?" Kurama asked, concerned, but the fire demon just frowned and kept his lips tightly sealed.

"Hiei, do you like ice cream?" Yusuke asked, having an idea of what was wrong with his team mate.

"Yes," Hiei replied, forcing the word out even though he really didn't want to answer.

"You have to tell the truth when someone asks you a question?" Kurama asked in surprise, also figuring it out.

"Yes..." Hiei ground out, then glared at the giggling Yusuke. "If you even _think_ about exploiting this opportunity for your childish amusement, I will crush your head like a soda can!"

"Well, clearly this lot are going to be a great help." Uryuu bitched, glaring at Ichigo as though it were entirely his fault.

"Shall we go?" Kurama put in, slightly worried that Hiei would actually attempt to kill Yusuke, who was cackling and asking him who his favourite Spice Girl was.

"Let's." Byakuya agreed, not quite knowing how he'd gotten into such a mess.

TBC


End file.
